We went down into the valley where the ships stood row on row, shouting and reeling as though we'd been celebrating for a week. The yardmaster heard us before he saw us. But he saw us quickly enough.
His lips tightened as he came striding toward us—a bushy-browed, hard-bitten old barnacle with a crusty stare. I could tell the exact instant when he recognized me. His jaw dropped about six inches; then closed with a click.
"Now!" I whispered to Pete.
Pete raised his voice. "You're higher than a kite!" he shouted. "Why buy a flying coffin when you could own the sweetest little job in the System?"
"What I do with my dough is my own business!" I shouted back. "They knew how to build ships in the old days!"
"I tell you—you're crazier than a diving loon!"
"Sure I'm crazy!" I agreed. "Only a baby with curvature of the brain could win back a cool eighty thousand on one spin of the wheel! But I'm sane enough not to want to thin out my take!"
"You'd flip a coin for one o' those flyin' coffins?"
"Why not?" I roared belligerently. "I've got five thousand that says I know what I'm doing! Five thousand against—the right to pick my own ship!"
I tripped myself then, deliberately by accident. I went sprawling over Pete's out-thrust right leg. When I picked myself up I must have looked as helpless as a new-born babe, because the yardmaster was gripping my arm and refusing to let go.